Chloe has a diploma in Mindfulness-based Interventions and teaches the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme and her own Mindful Sounds programme.
Mindfulness practice is itself over 2,600 years old and forms the heart of the Buddhist meditation. The term Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI’s) is an umbrella phrase and includes Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression and variations of these programmes for working with children and people with addiction.
The 8-week MBSR programme was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in the late ‘70’s. There he was running a stress-reduction clinic and was working predominantly with people experiencing chronic illness and chronic pain. Inspired by his own long-standing practice of yoga and meditation, he began to integrate practices into his work in the clinic, and the 8-week MBSR programme was born.The programme blends traditional Eastern spiritual teachings and practices with Western psychology, and is presented and taught in a secular way.
The MBSR programme proved to be incredibly successful in supporting people with chronic conditions. It was found that although it didn’t cure the conditions themselves, the programme helped to support the participants in shifting their perception of their conditions and this was found to dramatically change their relationship with their condition and experience of living with it.
Continued research over the past 40 years has consistently shown the benefits of this programme to patients with medical conditions including chronic illness and pain, high blood pressure, cancer, and many psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia and the MBSR has become part of a newly recognised field of integrative medicine within behavioural medicine and general health care.
Although the above refers to the use of mindfulness to treat medical conditions, research has found that developing a mindfulness practice can support everyone, and has a significant positive effect on:
Developing greater self-awareness
Increasing ability to manage stress
Physical and psychological health
Reducing anxiety and depression
Reducing reactivity
Enhancing relationships (with oneself and others)
Increasing receptivity
Aiding better sleep
Since 1979 MBSR has been delivered across a broad spectrum of settings all over the world, including hospitals, clinics, schools, prisons, private companies and community support groups, to address issues such as stress, anxiety and low mood, promote self-awareness, personal development and general well-being.
The MBSR course structure was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 and has not changed much since then, and delivery of this programme requires adherence to that structure, including a pre-course orientation, comprehensive delivery of the curriculum over 8 weeks, with classes of approx. 2.5/ 3 hours each week and a day of mindfulness practice around week 6 of the programme.
The practices explored during the 8-weeks can help participants to:
Become familiar with the workings of the mind, including the ways we avoid or get caught up in difficulties
Notice the times when we are at risk of getting caught in old habits of mind that re-activate downward mood spirals or rachet up anxiety levels.
Explore ways of releasing ourselves from those old habits and enter a different way of being.
Get in touch with a different way of knowing ourselves and the world.
Notice small beauties and pleasures in the world around us instead of living in our heads.
Be kind to ourselves instead of wishing things were different all the time, or driving ourselves to meet impossible goals.
Accept ourselves as we are, rather than judging ourselves all the time.
Be able to exercise greater choice in life.
If you are interested in participating in a MBSR course, or would like to enquire about having one delivered for a private group, please contact me or keep an eye on the event page for upcoming course dates.